Clean-up of the 1,200-barrel oil spill near Slave Lake continued last week. Most of the ‘gross oil’ had been recovered, but the work will go on for weeks, and quite likely won’t be finished until next spring.
“The weather is not in our favour,” says Rainbow Pipeline President Brian Clark. “We’ll continue clean-up efforts as long as they’re effective – until the weather makes it impossible, and continue in the spring.”
Rainbow had 80 people on the spill last week. That included someone Clark describes as a world expert in spill clean-up – a Texan named Donnie Ellis. They’ve also hired an outfit called Eastern Canadian Response Corporation to manage the job.
The spill area is in a small creek. To keep the water flowing while containing the oil, crews have installed what are called ‘inverted weirs’. They amount to siphon pipes running from higher to lower ponds, starting and ending below the level of the oil.
Once all the loose oil is removed, the lengthy task of cleaning up the oil-soaked soil and vegetation remains. Clark says the company plans to set up an incinerator on site. They’ll also put up snow fence around certain areas, to prevent people riding quads or snowmobiles through.
Meanwhile, the pipeline was fixed and back on stream by the evening of Oct. 16, almost exactly a week after the leak was discovered.
Clark says the section of pipe that sprung the leak is in a lab in Calgary, undergoing analysis.
Historically, he says, most corrosion that has caused leaks has been external, rather than internal. The leak was discovered early on Oct. 10. It was located southeast of Slave Lake, not far from Hwy. 2. The line, which runs from Zama Lake to Edmonton, was shut down, but not before approximately 200 cubic metres of light crude oil escaped.

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